Not good: Samsung UEFI laptops can brick when booting Ubuntu

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Frustrated Linux enthusiasts who own newer Samsung laptops — specifically those that utilize UEFI instead of BIOS — are unwittingly bricking their systems when they try to boot Ubuntu. Surprisingly enough, the problem doesn’t appear to have anything to do with Secure Boot — the Samsung laptops can fail regardless of whether Secure Boot is enabled or disabled.

The issue has been traced back to a Samsung laptop driver that’s part of the Linux kernel. Both Ubuntu 12.04 and 12.10 (and almost certainly a whole slew of derivative distributions) are known to have caused at least four different Samsung laptops to brick. The systems boot normally at first, but they freeze once the kernel trips over the problematic driver. The only way out is to cut the power and hope for the best.

For at least one user, that didn’t pan out so well. He ended up having to send his newly-purchased laptop back to Samsung, who promptly replaced the mainboard and returned it. Not figuring the failure had anything to do with booting Ubuntu from a USB flash drive, he tried again with his repaired system. When it bricked, too, he reported the incident on Canonical’s community forums.

Canonical and Samsung are working on a permanent solution, and that will likely come in the form of a firmware or driver update — or both. Canonical has also moved quickly to implement a temporary fix that’s already available in daily builds of Ubuntu.

If you own a Samsung UEFI laptop, make sure you grab a fresh ISO before leaping into the abyss!